Ben Bradlee, executive editor of the Washington Post from 1968 to 1991, oversaw the publication of the Pentagon Papers, documenting the Watergate scandal. He is the author of two books: Conversations with Kennedy (1984), and a memoir, A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures (1995).
Bradlee worked as a communications officer for the U.S. Navy during WWII, handling coded cables for the Office of Naval Intelligence. After the war, he worked as a journalist, as press attaché for the American Embassy in Paris, and for the Office of U.S. Information and Educational Exchange.
As a reporter in the 1950s, Bradlee became close friends with John F. Kennedy. They lived near one another in Georgetown, had both graduated from Harvard, and Bradlee’s first wife, Jean Saltonstall, was related to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Bradlee was Washington Bureau Chief for Newsweek, then hired as managing editor of the Washington Post by publisher Katherine Graham beginning in 1965. He taught occasional courses in journalism at Georgetown University.
Among other honors, Bradlee received the French Legion of Honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Homes
3014 N St. NW, Washington, DC (Laird-Dunlop House)
The middle section of this tripartate 40-room Colonial Revival mansion is the oldest; the two wings were a later addition. The house was built for John Laird, a tobacco merchant and one of the richest residents of the colonial city. It was passed to Laird’s daughter and her husband, Judge James Dunlop. The house was purchased in 1911 by Robert Todd Lincoln, and by Bradlee and his second wife, Sally Quinn, in 1983.
Ben Bradlee
3014 N St. NW, Washington DC
Located in Georgetown neighborhood, Northwest- West of Rock Creek